Who Do I Talk To? (40 page)

“Where's your hat, Lucy?” All summer she'd been wearing the purple knit hat Estelle had made for her. But now she was bareheaded, her gray hair clean but badly in need of a cut.

“Too hot. Whaddya think?”

I laughed and climbed into the van behind the wheel. “Glad you finally figured that out.”

At the last minute, Estelle came rushing out with a shopping bag full of leftovers from the repast to eat on the way. Amid a chorus of good-byes from our friends and family on the sidewalk, I pulled the van away from the curb, and in five minutes we were heading south on Lake Shore Drive. I looked sideways at Jodi. “Can't believe we're doing this.”

Jodi glanced over her shoulder into the second seat and then back at me, tipping her head slightly toward the rear. “Me either.” In the rearview mirror I could see Dandy sitting sideways, his chin resting on the back of the seat, eyes on the blue metal casket.

Better keep your eyes straight ahead, Gabby . . .

Jodi Baxter was a good navigator. She got me off Lake Shore Drive, through the city and going west on the Eisenhower Expressway, until we picked up the I-88 toll road all the way to Iowa—a boring stretch of road if I ever saw one. Construction, cornfields, and more construction. We didn't talk much, and I was just as glad. It was the first time I'd had fifteen uninterrupted minutes since the previous Monday, when Mom had the stroke.

Only four days ago . . .

But the images tumbling behind my eyes were less than four hours old. Philip coming into the shelter halfway through my mother's funeral. After I'd told him not to! Was he
trying
to upset me? Or—if I took what he said at face value—did he honestly feel sorry that I'd lost my mom? Was he having a crisis of conscience about what he'd done? And Lee! I hardly knew what to think about his reaction. His protective arm around me. His challenge to Philip.
“We'll see you in court!”
It felt so good to have a man stand up for me. And yet . . . why did I get this feeling Lee meant something more than lawyer-and-client by that shouted “we”? And why did I like it? Was it because I felt attracted to Lee? . . . or because I wanted to make Philip jealous?

Construction on the toll road slowed us down. I rolled down my window to save on air-conditioning as we crept along, thinking about P. J. and Paul. My time with them had been too short. Already, the memory-touch of their boyish hugs was starting to fade. P. J., in spite of his almost-fourteen stoicism, had looked so sad, as if on this trip he'd begun to understand, maybe for the first time, that his parents might actually get a divorce . . . and Paul, obviously homesick, needing his mom and dad . . . and I couldn't promise them a home to come home to.

A tear rolled down my cheek. Jodi touched my arm. “Want me to drive?”

I nodded and sniffed. “Soon as we get off this toll road.”

We crossed into the Quad Cities on the Iowa-Illinois border around five o'clock, pulled into a gas station, topped off the gas tank with my debit card, and took a potty break. “Don't have to go,” Lucy muttered, sliding out of the van and reaching for Dandy's leash. “I'll just walk the dog.”

I snatched Dandy's leash. “Rule Number One on car trips, Lucy. You
go
every time we stop, whether you think you have to or not. Next stop might not be for another couple of hours.”

Grumbling, Lucy followed Jodi into the station. But I hadn't counted on mutiny from Dandy. He wouldn't leave the van. I pulled on his leash, and he pulled back. I finally had to pick him up and carry him to a grassy area alongside the station. Even then he didn't go . . . until we got back to the van, and then he lifted his leg against a tire.

Jodi drove the rest of the way to Des Moines. The supper Estelle had packed for us—cold fried chicken, a bag of chips, fruit, and a ton of cookie bars—perked us up, and Jodi and I started singing some old camp songs to pass the time. “She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes, whoo! whoo!”—all the more ridiculous since the fields on either side of the road were flat as a hairbrush. I suggested “Row, row, row your boat”—no rivers or lakes in sight, either—but Jodi warbled the college prof version: “Propel, propel, propel your craft, placidly over the liquid solution . . .” By this time we were giggling like junior-high schoolgirls.

“You guys are nuts, know that?” Lucy hollered from the second seat.

It took us another three hours to drive halfway across Iowa, but it was still light when Jodi pulled Moby Van into her parents' driveway. A bald-headed man and a petite gray-haired woman who reminded me a lot of my mother came out of the house, beaming a welcome as we piled stiffly out of the vehicle. I stood back as Jodi gave her parents big hugs. “Mom, Dad . . . this is Gabby Fairbanks, the program director at Manna House. And this is Lucy, um, a friend of Gabby's mom. And this is Dandy, the Hero Dog I told you about—oh, Lucy! Don't let Dandy do that!”

Dandy was peeing on a rosebush.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, flustered. “Lucy, where's his leash? . . .Oh dear, it's been awhile since we let him out.”

Jodi's father chuckled. “I'm sure Dandy's not the first dog who's mistaken that bush for a fire hydrant.” He held out his hand. “I'm Sidney Jennings, this is my wife, Clara, and—”

“—and I've got supper waiting for you on the table,” Clara Jennings finished. “Come on, come on in.”

“Oh good,” Lucy muttered, stalking up the sidewalk. “Been least two hours since I last et.” We trooped along after her, though I noticed that Sidney Jennings hung back and peeked in the windows of the van, as though he couldn't quite believe we were trucking my mother's casket all the way to North Dakota.

Even though I wasn't really hungry after Estelle's sack supper, the homemade chicken noodle soup was so good that I asked for seconds. Lucy had thirds. The Jenningses graciously retired at ten, knowing we needed to get to bed so we could get an early start the next morning. Lucy and a reluctant Dandy bedded down in Jodi's old bedroom, and Jodi and I got the bunk beds in her brothers' old room. “Good thing I've got lots of experience sleeping in a bunk bed,” I yawned, crawling into the top bunk. “You don't snore, do you, Jodi?”

We settled down, an oscillating fan moving the night air a little in the stuffy bedroom. It had been a long day, and I was tired beyond belief . . . but I suddenly rolled over and hung my head over the side of the bunk. “Jodi?”

“Mmph . . . what?”

“I feel kinda funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . it doesn't really feel right that we're in here together, all comfy and cozy, tucked into bed . . . and my mom is still out there in a box in the van.”

Jodi stifled a screech. “No! You didn't say that . . . Oh, that's
awful.
” She grabbed her pillow and whopped my upside-down head with it, trying not to laugh, but her horrified giggles seemed to pull a plug out of the dike of pent-up emotions from the past few days, and the next thing I knew I had tumbled off the top bunk, and the two of us collapsed together on the lower bunk, pushing our faces into the covers, trying to stifle our hysterical laughter.

chapter 41

After our irrational bout of laughter had turned to tears, Jodi and I comforted each other with the reality that Mom was safe and warm in the arms of Jesus, and we fell asleep . . . and were on the road again by seven o'clock with a long twelve-hour day ahead of us. I skipped my shower—a decision I later regretted. Still in his bathrobe, Jodi's dad had insisted we eat the hot breakfast he'd prepared—bacon, scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and coffee—and her mom had packed sandwiches to take along. “I'm sorry to take Jodi away so soon, Mrs. Jennings,” I said, taking the small cooler with the sandwiches she handed to me and giving her a hug, catching a whiff of lilac in her hair.

Like my mom . . .

“Never you mind,” she whispered. “Her dad and I are planning a trip to Chicago for Jodi's birthday in September—but don't tell her. It's a surprise.”

I almost blurted, “No, no surprises!” Parents showing up on the doorstep unannounced had had disastrous consequences in my case. But I held my tongue, realizing I had to stop seeing the world through the Fairbanks grid.

Lucy had taken Dandy for a short walk after breakfast and managed not to get lost in the unfamiliar suburb, and Jodi drove first, heading north on Route 35 toward Minnesota. From time to time, I tried to engage Lucy in conversation, but she usually answered my attempts with a grunt or one-word answer, seemingly content to hunker by the window behind the driver's seat, eyes locked on cornfields and small towns as they zipped past. And when she did talk, she talked to Dandy. “Hey, lookee there, Dandy. Ever see so many cows? Wonder who doin' all that milkin' . . .”

We'd been traveling an hour or so when I heard a familiar rumble and realized both Lucy and Dandy had zonked out, the dog's head in her lap. I shook my head, kicked off my sandals, and put my bare feet on the dash with a big sigh. “Don't know what to do about Dandy. Lucy's gotten so attached to him. Paul would really like to have a dog, which would be fine with me, once I have a place for me and the boys. But now . . .” The mental wall I'd been holding up between me and reality suddenly started to crumble.

“But now . . . what?” Jodi prodded.

It all came tumbling out, the whole fragile house of cards I'd been counting on—finding an apartment so I could get custody of my sons, getting excited about the apartment Lee Boyer had shown me, thinking I could afford it if Mom and I shared the expense. “. . . That's what!” I said between my teeth, trying not to wake up Lucy. “I can't afford that apartment by myself—and I can't shoehorn myself and two big boys into those shoeboxes that the Chicago Housing Authority subsidizes for the homeless, even if I was number one on their waiting list, which I'm not.” I banged a fist on the passenger door. “Now I know how Tanya and Precious feel, stuck in a homeless shelter, dangling between nothing and nothing. And all they want is to make a home for their kid, get a job, be a family!”

Jodi nodded but said nothing, concentrating on passing a big hog transport tying up traffic in the right lane.

“Huh,” I muttered. “Maybe I should play the lottery like your friend what's-her-name—”

“Chanda.” Jodi pumped the speed up to seventy, glancing anxiously back at the big semi before finally pulling the van back into the right lane. “Sheesh, I keep forgetting how long this van is.”

“Yeah, Chanda. If I had
her
luck, I could buy that whole building and we could all move in.”

Jodi settled back against her seat, finally glancing over at me. “You don't need luck, Gabby. Remember when you came to Yada Yada a couple of Sundays ago? That was some powerful prayer we had for you—you said so yourself.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I thought so too. I've really been trying to trust God, trying to pray—and for a while, I thought God was answering my prayers. Especially when Lee Boyer said he'd found an apartment for me. But now . . . I don't know. Seems like everything's back at square one.”

“Must be that God's got a better plan.”

I stared at her. “
What
better plan?!”

Jodi shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. “Don't ask me. But that's what Avis Douglass always says when one of us Yada Yadas is fussing and fuming about something not working out like we wanted it to. And believe me, Gabby, it's happened often enough—when I get enough courage to pry my fingers off my plans and ideas long enough to ask God to take over, that is—that I'm beginning to think she's right.”

Lucy woke up when we pulled into a gas station outside Minneapolis about eleven. “I know, I know,” she muttered, climbing stiffly out of the van. “Rule Number One. But ya fergot the rule 'afore that 'un—take care of your animals first. That's what my daddy useta say, back when we had us a farm.” And she marched off to a tiny strip of grass beside the gas station with Dandy in tow, her gray hair standing up like she'd stuck her finger in a socket.

I blew a limp curl out of my eyes in the climbing heat, trying not to watch as the little numbers whirled upward on the gas pump. Like Jodi said, at least it was cheaper than shipping my mom's casket, and a
lot
cheaper than buying a cemetery plot in Chicago.
Guess I should be thanking You about that,
I prayed silently as I hung up the gas hose and screwed the gas cap back on.
But, Jesus, if You've got a better plan for what happens next, I'd sure like to know what it is.

Lucy and Jodi were coming out of the restroom as I came in. I took one look in the mirror over the sink and grimaced. My curly hair hung limp, the color dull, my face bare of makeup.
Ouch. Should've gotten up fifteen minutes earlier for a shower.

I splashed my face and freshened up as best I could, and when I got back to the van, Jodi and Lucy had the back doors of the van open. “Them flowers is wiltin',” Lucy announced as she hauled herself awkwardly into the van and inspected the casket in the back. “Here.” She handed two flower arrangements out to Jodi and me. “Go find some water.”